And as I recall, Erie PA used to be the home Kohler beer, "the beer with the Dutch Touch"--a truly great local beer. It came as far south as Pittsburgh wherein you could buy it in a beer depot. (that was a Pittsburgh thing)

Once upon a library in Erie, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten bane, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, tapping at the window pane. "'Tis some raven," I muttered, "tapping at the library door -- Quoth the old goose "Nevermore."

Erie's the biggest one I've ever been in. Can't escape it driving to Niagara Falls. Home of GE Locomotives, btw.

Beer depots are all over PA, at least according to my Wilkes-Barre buddy. From trips home, he would bring back Straub, the Celebrated Pottsville Porter, and Lord Chesterfield Ale back in the day. Straub tasted like Point Special, only better.

Beer depots are all over PA, at least according to my Wilkes-Barre buddy. From trips home, he would bring back Straub, the Celebrated Pottsville Porter, and Lord Chesterfield Ale back in the day. Straub tasted like Point Special, only better.

Is there a more schizophrenic State in the Union, than Pennsylvania?

I mean, that's my personal opinion from what I've seen.

You get everything from the most elite Main Line crowd who live near ducal existences, to the grittiest working class people in America, down mines and steel mills.

I mean, sure, you can say that about New York, Massachussetts or stately Southern States like South Carolina or Mississippi.

But unlike these Northern and Southern states, Pennsylvania doesn't have an overriding individualism which ties all together.

Ms Victoria--I was in Pittsburgh from 1971 to 1973 going to grad school at U of Pitt. It was the only city I have ever been in where there were very few "class" restaurants. You had to buy beer from a beer depot--usually a drive through affair. Restaurant food consisted of something at a local bar and grill--the town was organized around ethnocentric minotity clubs--the polish club, the slavic club, what have you. Thats where the restaurants were. And they were reserved for the members of the clan. It was genuinely a city of clans, brought together, as near as I can tell, but the wonderful Steeler football teams of the mid 1970s.